Liverpool maintained their advantage with a slender 1 – 0 victory over Portsmouth. Tony Adams in his first game in charge after being confirmed as Harry Redknapp's replacement looked as though his charges would suffocate their hosts before Diop handled in the area with fourteen minutes remaining, L'il Stevie Gerrard despatched the resultant penalty. Click to continue reading...

The top two met at Stamford Bridge as Liverpool took their appalling record against fellow members of the top four during Rafa Benitez's reign to face Chelsea, undefeated at home in four years and eighty-six Premier League matches. Cue the idiosyncracies of football as Xabi Alonso scored the only goal of the game in the [. Click to continue reading...

GROUP A Chelsea maintained their unbeaten start to see themselves three points clear at the top of Group A. John Terry's seventy-eighth minute winner enough to see off AS Roma who will nervously be eyeing the result in Romania as their qualification is starting to look a little precarious. Bordeaux did them a favour by beating [. Click to continue reading...

GROUP A Chelsea sat on top of the Premier League as well as this qualification group prior to their visit to Romania and at the end of the evening were still there thanks to a goalless draw against surprise package CFR Cluj-Napoca. Even the bookings were level with two apiece in a forgettable clash. AS Roma [. Click to continue reading...

Chelsea emphasised their good form at The Riverside with a magnificent 5 - 0 thumping of hapless Middlesbrough. Saloman Kalou opened the scoring on fourteen minutes and that was the way it stayed until the fifty-first minute when Belletti doubled the advantage. Three goals in fourteen minutes then put the contest beyond doubt as Kalou [. Click to continue reading...

Chelsea and Liverpool shared top spot at the start of a weekend that saw them face tricky matches against teams with aspirations to break the big four cartel. At Stamford Bridge, the leaders overcame Aston Villa comfortably, a team who had taken four out of six points from them last season. First half goals from [. Click to continue reading...

ROAD TO ROME – CHAMPIONS LEAGUE MATCHDAY 1 GROUP A All roads lead to Rome so the old saying goes but for AS Roma the pressure of being the club whose ground will host the 2009 final proved too much to bear in their encounter with CFR Cluj-Napoca of Romania. Christian Panucci gave the Italians the lead [. Click to continue reading...

Michel Platini endlessly pontificates on the romantic nature of football, championing the small clubs, berating their larger, richer cousins. Chastising borrowers, criticising those who do not give youth a chance, all the while sitting in his Ivory Tower doing little or nothing to implement these policies, hamstrung by the committee structure that pervades UEFA, frustrated [. Click to continue reading...

Arsenal started the day in top spot and were expected to crush Hull City at The Emirates. Football though has a habit of bringing you back to Earth, the visitors doing so by winning 2 - 1. It did not seem that it would be the case when Cesc Fabregas forced McShane to put through [...] Click to continue reading...

Carlos Tevez was widely tipped to be remembered for his silky skills when he burst onto the scene in his native Argentina. Sadly for the player, unless he achieves the greatness of Pele or Maradona or their ilk, the abiding memory of his time in England will be that of his transfer to West Ham. [...] Click to continue reading...

Chelsea entertained Manchester United at Stamford Bridge, the scene last season of alleged racial abuse leading to a contretemps between United players and Chelsea groundstaff, disciplinary action still sitting gathering cobwebs at the FA Headquarters. This time, the trouble was on the pitch, seven United players cautioned triggering an automatic £25k fine, three of which [. Click to continue reading...

The leaders went into the weekend level on points, both facing Mancunian opposition. Liverpool met fire with fire at Anfield, defeating Manchester United 2 - 1 to briefly claim top spot. Dimitar Berbatov's debut turned out to be a damp squib despite setting up Carlos Tevez for the opener with barely three minutes on the [. Click to continue reading...

Manchester United's match against Fulham was a casualty as the Champions League winners crashed to defeat in Monaco against Zenit St Petersburg in the European Super Cup final. Sir Alex Ferguson consoled himself by going shopping, his mood brightened by finding a Dimitar Berbatov on the shelf, looking all upset and lonely, the price of [. Click to continue reading...

If the opening day of the season went pretty much to form, the book was ripped up and thrown out of the window in the season's second weekend. Having habitually failed to get their due reward on trips to Fratton Park, Manchester United took three deserved points from Portsmouth with Darren Fletcher's thirty-second minute strike. Click to continue reading...

The 2008/09 campaign kicked off with the top three from last season all at home, all avoiding defeat. Arsenal set the ball rolling with the lunchtime kick-off against last season's Championship title winners, West Bromwich Albion. Having been relatively inactive during the summer transfer window, The Gunner's major signing, Samir Nasri, took just four minutes [. Click to continue reading...